North Korea warns of ‘crisis beyond control’ in new threat to US president Joe Biden – World News
North Korea warned the US it will face a “crisis beyond control” and a “very grave situation” in its latest threat since Joe Biden became president.
A spokesman for dictator Kim Jong-un’s regime said Washington’s recent criticism of human rights in North Korea shows that the United States is “girding itself up for an all-out showdown”.
Kim’s regime lashed out at the US in a series of statements on Sunday, saying Biden’s recent comments about nuclear weapons are proof of a hostile policy that requires a corresponding response from Pyongyang.
In a separate statement, Kim’s sister Kim Yo-jong warned South Korea would face consequences for failing to stop defector activists from launching anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border into North Korean territory.
(Image: Getty Images)
In a speech to Congress last week, Biden said Kim’s nuclear programme presents “a serious threat to America’s security and world security”.
Pyongyang’s latest warning underscores the challenges Biden faces as he seeks to distance his approach from the failures of his predecessors.
In one statement, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman accused Washington of insulting the dignity of the country’s supreme leadership by criticising North Korea’s human rights situation.
The human rights criticism is a provocation that shows theUnited States is “girding itself up for an all-out showdown” with North Korea, and will be answered accordingly, the unnamed spokesman said.
The Mirror’s newsletter brings you the latest news, exciting showbiz and TV stories, sport updates and essential political information.
The newsletter is emailed out first thing every morning, at 12noon and every evening.
Never miss a moment by signing up to our newsletter here.
In a separate statement, Kwon Jong Gun, director general of the Department of US Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, cited Biden’s first policy speech to Congress, where the new president said nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran posed threats that would be addressed through “diplomacy and stern deterrence.”
Kwon said it is illogical and an encroachment upon North Korea’s right to self-defence for the United States to call its defensive deterrence a threat.
“His statement clearly reflects his intent to keep enforcing the hostile policy toward the DPRK as it had been done by the US for over half a century,” he said, using the initials for North Korea’s official name.
Kwon said US talk of diplomacy is aimed at covering up its hostile acts, and its deterrence is just a means for posing nuclear threats to North Korea.
Related video from March
Video Unavailable
Now that Biden’s policy has become clear, North Korea “will be compelled to press for corresponding measures, and with time the US will find itself in a very grave situation,” he concluded.
Talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to surrender its nuclear weapons program have been stalled since a series of summits between Biden’s predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, and Kim failed to result in a deal.
The Biden policy attempts to strike a middle ground between Trump’s efforts, as well as those of Democrat Barack Obama, who refused serious diplomatic engagement with North Korea absent any steps by Pyongyang to reduce tensions.
(Image: Getty Images)
The White House and State Department did not immediately comment on the latest North Korean statements.
The North Korean statements appear to echo comments by the ministry in March saying relations with the United States would be shaped by the “principle of power for power and goodwill for goodwill,” said Jenny Town, director of the US-based 38 North programme, which tracks North Korea.
“So for the US to keep emphasising the threat, it keeps focus on the negative aspects of the relationship and will elicit negative responses,” she said.
Markus Garlauskas, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and former US national intelligence officer for North Korea, said Pyongyang’s rhetoric is a reminder that the problem is bigger than terminology or tactics.
(Image: POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
“The differences between the Kim regime and the United States are much more fundamental,” he said.
Kim does not intend to give up nuclear weapons nor reform North Korea’s political system and it is hard to see how Washington could embrace a nuclear-armed North Korea that abuses human rights, Garlauskas said.
In a third statement on Sunday, Kim Yo-jong, a senior official in the government and sister of leader Kim Jong-un, sharply criticised South Korea for failing to stop defector activists from launching anti-North Korea leaflets.
An activist group in South Korea said on Friday it had released balloons into North Korea carrying dollar bills and leaflets denouncing the government in Pyongyang, defying a recently imposed law banning such releases after complaints by the North.
(Image: AFLO/PA Images)
“We regard the manoeuvres committed by the human wastes in the south as a serious provocation against our state and will look into corresponding action,” Kim Yo-jong said.
Last year, North Korea blew up an inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong, North Korea, after Kim Yo-jong led a campaign of criticism over the leaflet launches.
On May 21 Biden is due to have his first meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has pushed for more engagement with North Korea.
Moon’s efforts were frustrated by the failure of denuclearisation talks under Trump, which left sanctions in place that block most economic engagement with the North.
Biden’s skepticism toward meeting personally with Kim, and his administration’s renewed focus on spotlighting North Korean human rights abuses present new hurdles for Moon as he seeks to make progress with Pyongyang in the last year of his presidency.
